Session 17: International Financial Markets–International Asset Trade and the World Reserve Currency
Does the explosion in international asset trade, the new global financial power of the Asia-Pacific countries, and the emerging dual world reserve currency system challenge the preeminent role for the dollar? What does this mean for the stability of the international monetary system, its institutions, and the global external adjustment challenges?
Presentations
Heinz-Jürgen Büchner slideshow
Links of Interest
Speakers
Chris Varvares
Macroeconomic Advisers
Chris Varvares is President of Macroeconomic Advisers, a company he co-founded with Joel Prakken and Laurence Meyer as Laurence H. Meyer & Associates in 1982. The firm became Macroeconomic Advisers in June of 1996 when Dr. Meyer joined the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Mr. Varvares has roughly 25 years of experience in macroeconomic forecasting and policy analysis, both as a principal of Macroeconomic Advisers (1982 to present) and as a member of the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers (1981-1982). While at the Council, he served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the OECD in April 1982. Mr. Varvares is a Director of the National Association of for Business Economics (NABE), a member and former President of the St. Louis Chapter of NABE, and is a member of the American Economic Association. He participates as a guest panelist for the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers, serves as a member of Time Magazine's Board of Economists, is member of New York State's Economic Advisory Board, and has been a panelist for the World Economic Forum.
Mr. Varvares holds a B.A. in Economics from the George Washington University and received his graduate training in economics from Washington University in St. Louis.
Brian A. Bethune
Global Insight
Dr. Bethune is Director of Financial Economics for Global Insight's United States Macroeconomics Group. Prior to this, he was Manager, Business Economics Group for Caterpillar Inc., and senior financial economist for the Bank of Montreal/Harris Bank Group. He has worked on special assignments at the World Trade Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, and the Institute of International Finance, Washington D.C. Bethune is responsible for high-frequency economic analysis and the weekly financial report. In addition, Bethune develops and supports US macroeconomic model resources for credit and financial markets, interest and borrowing rates, the flow of funds, government debt and deficits, government expenditures, and taxation.
His areas of Expertise at Global Insight include: Federal Reserve analysis and monetary policy decisions; Credit market dynamics, financial regulation, and the flow of funds; Interest rates, borrowing rates, financial modeling, and the yield curve; High-frequency US economic developments and their impact on equity, bond, and currency markets; Government budgets and debt; Government policies: revenues, expenditures, and policy simulations
Bethune is the author of several professional and academic articles that have appeared in publications such as Business Economics, as well as in the Canadian Tax Journal. Bethune holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in international economics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He also holds a Master of Arts from McMaster University, Canada, and a Certificate in Advanced Monetary Economics from the Kiel Institute of World Economics, Kiel, Germany.
Maurice Obstfeld
University of California at Berkeley
Heinz-Jürgen Büchner
IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG
Dr Heinz-Jürgen Büchner is Vice President, Economics and Research, at the IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG at Düsseldorf.
He has been with IKB since September 1990. Prior to that, he was with the Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz at Mainz, and from 1981 to 1987 was an Assistant Professor at the Economics Department of the University of Bonn.
He studied Economics at the University of Bonn, where he received his Ph.D. His dissertation was on “Economic theories of tax evasion”.
